Echoes In The Silent Chasm
by PhoenixFalls
Summary: This is a follow-up fic for w00t4ewan's "The Five Horsemen of the Silent Chasm" which should be read first for context. Grief fic. Jemily


Emily had been at home when she had heard about JJ's suicide. Morgan's voice on the other end of the line had sounded tinny and strained over the connection and she had to ask him to repeat himself twice. Once the sentence fully clicked in her head, Emily had sat down suddenly and forcefully as she saw stars and spots burst forth like out of season fireworks and blackness ate at the edge of her vision. Jennifer was dead. Emily immediately understood…she'd been to that edge so of course she would understand but the only thing she could really feel outside the gaping void within herself stretching and deepening to gleefully consume even more of her like some emotional black hole where everything compressed to a single point of abject pain—the only thing she felt was sick.

She cried for nearly two weeks straight. Falling apart at the seams every second she was alone. Every time Emily was sure she'd run out of tears, that she was physically incapable of producing more tears, there was more.

There was always more.

Emily thought she'd be ready by the time the funeral happened. She'd _finally_ been getting into a space where she could see JJ's favourite movie playing at 4AM (she doesn't sleep much anymore) without losing it; she could _finally_ think about the way JJ's hair looked spilled over a pillow while she was asleep without imagining blood and brains (she hadn't been there, of course, but she'd seen enough for her imagination to be perfectly accurate in providing an image); she was sure she could _finally_ get through a whole day without bursting into tears or suddenly becoming hyper-aware of the time and realizing that she'd literally spent the last forty-five minutes staring into space at nothing…Emily thought she'd be ready by the time the funeral happened, but the second US soil became visible through the plane window, she knew she'd been lying to herself. She'd never been ready.

Will picked her up from the airport. He had insisted that Emily stay with him. Emily didn't want to; Emily _couldn't_ , but Henry wanted her to and she would always do anything for him, doubly so now. Will is pale and rumpled and too thin, she noted mentally when she finally spotted him at the baggage claim. He looked lost. Physically, emotionally, mentally…Emily is certain she does too.

They weren't close, they'd never been close and if they had had cause to be around each other and JJ had never been in the picture, they would have never been friends. They had never really been friends in reality, but they embraced each other like they'd done it a million times when they reached each other at her flight's concourse. They fall into each other's arms and they feel lost together. Both of their cheeks are wet when they pull away. Will is mildly surprised that Emily doesn't immediately wipe her eyes when part. They just hold onto each other's forearms and each other's gazes because what could be said?

Emily knew exactly when Will saw it. When he could see what she'd _really_ lost too. When he could see that she hadn't just loved JJ, but had Loved her and that there had been something there in return. Emily knew because she could see it on his face and she was mildly surprised when Will leant over to press an uncharacteristically and surprisingly comforting kiss to her forehead and squeezes her forearms gently and nods once in acknowledgement. They both know they'll never bring it up verbally. What's the point? Of anything?

Henry had been sitting in a chair against the railing separating the baggage claim from the foot traffic of BWI staring at his scuffed sneakers silently. He didn't talk so much these days. When he saw Emily, he not-quite-ran to stand next to his father while he greeted her—it's the quickest he'd moved in a week.

When Emily's arms are free, Henry throws himself into them.

He'd never seen Auntie Emily cry before, and with his head buried in the crook of her neck, he still doesn't, but he hears her bite back a sob and his head bobs as her shoulders shake because she failed to stop the tears. Emily's thankful it's not the wracking sobs she'd been accustomed to so far.

She carried Henry out to the car. He didn't seem to want to remove his little arms from around her neck or his head from her shoulder and while he was too big now to be carried around anywhere, but she was going to shoot anyone who even suggested that she put him down. Emily held him possessively; one arm locked tightly around his waist, holding him almost too hard against her and the other hand raking soothingly (for him, for her) through his mother's hair that crowned his head. She whispers in Henry's ear that she loves him very much and it's the only thing anyone's said as Will lead them out to the parking garage with Emily's bags in hand.

It's the only thing anyone says when Emily slides into the backseat with Henry still in her arms, now in her lap. She pressed kisses to the top of his head and rests her cheek against his hair. They shouldn't ride in the car like that. Emily knows JJ will (would, she reminds herself. She hasn't gotten good at that yet) have a fit that neither of them are buckled in properly, but Henry doesn't move from her lap and Emily would be loathe to let him go even if he tried. Will's only acknowledgement is his driving under the speed limit.

Will and Henry had moved into one of Morgan's properties. It wasn't an ideal place, but it wasn't _that_ house and that's what mattered. The funeral wasn't for another four days and the three of them haunt the little fixer-upper; going through the motions of existence, each with a perpetually lost expression. It feels wrong and hard and unnecessary to speak, so they don't beyond necessity. Within hours of sharing a space, the three of them learn to read each other's minds so they don't have to talk.

Emily was sleeping in the guest room. Emily was staring at the ceiling in the guest room because Emily only slept when her body shut down on her and forced her to. She had sleeping pills, but she rarely took them. She told her psychiatrist she hated how foggy they made her for hours after she woke, especially with her job. She'd promised him to take the pills to DC with her since she wouldn't be working. The pills didn't actually make her foggy, which cleared up a few minutes after she was coherent. The pills did what they were supposed to and made her sleep. And she dreamt. Too vividly.

She dreamt about JJ. Always JJ. It was too vivid; too cruel. Emily couldn't stand it.

Her psychiatrist would certainly pressure her to see a therapist if he knew, so she fed him a plausible lie and he believed it. The pills are sitting at the bottom of the garment bag hanging on the back of the bedroom door, holding her dress for the memorial service. There was only two pills missing from the bottle because she didn't want to sleep and she didn't want to dream. Emily laid awake staring at the bedroom ceiling because the black garment bag on the back of the door looked too much like a body bag in the dark and the fleeting thoughts about how there were an awful lot of those sleeping pills left felt less fleeting and less innocuous and less absentminded than she could usually convince herself they were.

She squeezed her eyes shut hard enough that she could keep those thoughts out. She'd done it before and she could do it again. She could ignore the flare of impulsivity that made appealing promises. Emily's eyes were closed but she knew she sleep wouldn't come…it was on the horizon, she'd been awake too many days. Probably tomorrow. She still had a little time to prepare for what was waiting for her in her dreams.

She's not startled when the door opens in the dark and Henry shuffles in, half closing the door behind him and crawling into bed with her without asking. She'd sat up and wrapped her arms around him and he told her there was a monster in the new closet. He was getting a little old for monsters and Emily knew that as much as she and Will could be alone with their sorrow, Henry couldn't and Henry shouldn't have to be. She rocked him gently and Henry told her he's glad she's there. That he missed her being there. That he's sorry for climbing into bed with her without asking but daddy thrashes and screams in his sleep sometimes and that's scarier than the monster in the new closet.

Emily told him she loved him and he could sleep with her as long as she was staying there if he wants, rocking him all the while.

Henry asked her to sing to him. Mommy used to do it and it helps him sleep. Daddy only knows silly songs that usually end in tickles or shouting, but he won't do it anymore. Maybe tomorrow night, he always said. Henry thinks Tomorrow Night is someplace unattainable. Tomorrow Night is where easy laughter and pancake Sunday and songs about bunnies getting bopped on the head and tickles have gone.

Tomorrow Night is where mommy has gone.

Emily sings Blackbird. She shouldn't. She knew she shouldn't do that to herself. Or Henry. JJ had never said so, but Emily wasn't stupid. She knew JJ must have sang it to him and the way he snuffled quietly and held onto her tightly confirmed as much. She sang—to both of them—Blackbird twice before he fell asleep. She sang it once more for herself before she fell silent and rocked Henry till morning, her cheek pressed against the top of his head and staring at the garment back hanging on the back of the door.

A lot of people spoke at JJ's funeral. She was loved. Is loved. Will always be loved. The service ran long but no one left. Henry stood next to Will, clutching his hand and staring at his shiny black dress shoes while his father spoke. Will's voice stumbled like a drunk on unsteady legs and he didn't finish reading what he'd written before he broke down. Henry looked like he wanted to pull away, but he just held onto his dad's hand tighter as Morgan led them back to their seats. Hotch finishes what Will wrote and his voice is heavy with enough sorrow that everyone present could feel the words pressing down on them.

Everyone on the team said a few words. Loving words, guilty words, regretful words, words full of ache. Emily spoke too. She didn't break down, not like Will did anyway. Her voice was watery and it dipped and cracked and she cleared her throat too often. Stopped entirely at some points and closed her eyes to take a deep shaking breath. She looked like she was asking for the strength to keep going.

She was, in more ways than one.

Emily spoke and she didn't break down like Will did, but it was clear that something in her was broken. It was clear to the team, to the people who knew both Emily and JJ intimately, that Emily had Loved her. Had always Loved her. Still Loved her. Emily knew they would know and she didn't care. It didn't matter anymore. It would never matter again. When it came time to place flowers on the coffin, who's lid had been shut the whole time (and would remain so until it rotted away), the only people who noticed that out of all the flowers, only Emily's, Will's, and Henry's were red roses, was the team. None of them said anything. They had all had ideas. All unconfirmed knowledge. All unsurprised with confirmation. All hugging Emily a little longer and more tightly than they would have, but none of them said anything.

Emily stayed almost a whole week longer than she'd originally planned to after the funeral. She'd thought that she'd want to flee to lick her wounds alone right away, but when Garcia had asked her to stay, she said she'd think about it and when Henry asks her the same, she made her up her mind. She wasn't in a hurry to go back anyway. Home was a person. Home was Jennifer. Home was under six feet for dirt and a marble headstone that had the words 'beloved daughter, sister, wife, and friend' carved into it like that could have possibly summed up what JJ was (had been, she reminded herself. She hadn't gotten good at that yet). Emily was Homeless now. Going back to her expensive flat in London wouldn't have changed that. Nothing would, so she stayed for a while.

She sang Henry to sleep. She left Will a few of her pills on the edge of his bathroom sink every night without comment. Just enough for him to get some actual sleep. She beat Reid at chess and half-heartedly argued with Rossi about wine. She fell asleep on Garcia's shoulder with the hacker's arm around her shoulder in the middle of a movie marathon and she dreamt like always. She got drunk with Morgan and it made it easier to play at things being normal for a while.

She went home with women that reminded her of JJ.

One woman who looked a bit like her. One who slaughtered everyone in the vicinity at darts. One who laughed enough like her that when Emily had heard it, her breath hitched and she thought she would cry. She stopped and knew she'd never go home with another woman who reminded her of Jennifer when the one who sounded a little like her (and a lot like a her four whiskey's in) sighed Emily's name like a simultaneous plea and a promise while Emily had her head buried between her legs.

She had made it out of the woman's apartment and all the way to her rented car before she hiccupped a dry heave and rested her forehead on her hands that were clutching the steering wheel of the parked vehicle and sobbed like she hadn't the whole time she'd been there. She apologized to JJ through her tears. She didn't know why, JJ couldn't hear her and JJ would forgive her if she could. She would have insisted there was nothing to apologize for. Emily chanted that she was sorry like it was some kind of mantra anyway. JJ might have forgiven herself, but Emily couldn't forgive herself.

It was irrational, but there it was.

She took a shower with all the hot water in Will's house when she got back there. It hurt and it made her skin angry and red, but she needed it. She cried under the spray with her weight rested against her hands that were pressed tightly to the tile as if it were the only thing keeping her from spinning away. Emily stayed there until the water was freezing. It hurt and it made her skin angry and her teeth chatter, but she needed it.

She sang Henry Blackbird twice before he fell asleep. She sang it once more for herself and rocked Henry till morning with her cheek pressed against his hair. The garment bag on the back of the door was gone and folded expertly into her suitcase, but she thought about the bottle at the bottom of the bag and didn't have the energy to chastise herself for how forlornly she noted that she had given too many to Will to do anything for herself but sleep. And dream. She had three refills on the prescription but she knew when she unpacked once she got back to her expensive flat in London, she wouldn't refill them. She wouldn't even finish what was left in the bottle.

Emily left the next day. Henry held her hand all the way up to security and asked in a voice that said he was terrified she was going to go to Tomorrow Night if he could call her sometimes and she could sing to him. Emily promised that he could call whenever he wanted and she promised that any time he talked to her, if he wanted her to sing, she would.

Emily and Will hugged again like they'd done it a million times instead of three. They were never friends. They were still not friends, but there is a certain amount of camaraderie that gets fostered when your Home is the same person and your Home has gone to Tomorrow Night where there was no chance of Home being rebuilt.

Emily didn't cry on the whole plane ride back. Or the cab ride to her expensive flat in London. It was an improvement. When she got home, she fell asleep. She was exhausted. And when she fell asleep in just the right way for just the right amount of time, she reached out for JJ's hand and mirrored the sincerely happy smile on the blonde's face.

She whispered "I Love you's" like a mantra into perfectly formed ears and pressed her lips against perfectly whole temples. Emily was exhausted and she fell asleep. And she dreamt. When she wakes up the next day, the world will be cold and grey and ugly and pointless again, but that was tomorrow.

 **A/N:**

Like woot4ewan, this was a very personal, and frankly painful, fic to write because of my own experiences with the loss of loved ones through suicide and my own issues with mental health issues.

If you or a loved one is suffering from suicidal ideations or other mental health issues, please reach out. You deserve to be around to see better days.

1 (800) 273-8255

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline


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